Trump expended a whole lotta political muscle to get Hesgeth confirmed. Hegseth has also been cleaning out his front office of anyone even suspected of not being loyal. And, even with Signalgate and associated messes, Trump is still expending poitical capital to keep him.
Then last Monday, Trump issues this Executive Order. The title alone whould scare you
STRENGTHENING AND UNLEASHING AMERICA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PURSUE CRIMINALS AND PROTECT INNOCENT CITIZENS
If you dig into it, howerer, it gets worse
Sec. 4. Using National Security Assets for Law and Order. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.
(b) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime.
Bolding mine.
So, by the first of August, Trump will have “excess” military and national security assets deployed in the US at the State and Local levels to “help” local law enforcement to “prevent crime”.
Trump knows that it would be nearly impossible to replace Hegseth in that time frame. the AG, not much, but the Sec of Def has to know the big plan and has to be someone who is 1000% loyal. That is why we need to insist on a full and open investigation of Signalgate.
When he was nominated, I said he was the canary in the coal mine for Congress acting as a check and/or balance to Trump’s presidential power. He was so manifestly unqualified for the job, there was no way anyone in Congress taking a real look at him would vote to confirm him. If he was confirmed, that meant that the current Congress would never stand up to Trump in any meaningful way. The usual suspects might rant about Trump in every venue they have access to, but in the end, none of that would matter. The GOP would eventually back Trump in any case.
And here we are. It’s not going to get better. Neither Trump nor Congress will hold Hegseth to account, and no one else has any power to do that.
You can see Hegseth’s Bronze Star citation here. Note that he was decorated for satisfactorily performing his duties. Doesn’t even meet that standard in his current job.
I can answer that one right now, I don’t need 90 days to do it. They can’t.
Remember the good old days when it was right wing loons who were always freaking out about secret plans to use the military to take over America, going on about the New World Order, black helicopters and FEMA concentration camps? Yeah, I kind of miss those days.
That’s because you thought they were freaking out about the planned actions. It turns out they were freaking out about the plans being secret. That must be the reason Trump is their hero/idol. That clown is incapable of keeping a secret.
ISTM Trump does not expend political capital. He runs MAGA and he gets whatever he wants, as much as he wants. There is not a finite pool of political horse trading to keep someone. Trump just wants whatever and it happens. No one is pushing back or making Trump expend anything to get what he wants. If he wants to keep Hegseth, he gets to keep Hegseth.
Exactly this, and it’s the story of his life. He’s gotten as far as he has not because he’s especially clever or determined; but simply because his entire life society has enabled and shield him. He doesn’t have to run roughshod over Congressional resistance, because there isn’t any. Just as he didn’t have to expend serious effort to take over the Republican party because they collectively rolled over for him.
Trump is a bigoted, greedy, stupid, rich white male; the kind of person our society is built from the ground up to protect, promote and enrich. He’s never needed anything else to ensure he could do whatever he pleased without resistance or consequences. He acts like an angry toddler because he never had to mature past that.
It’s easy to be invincible when everyone you run into surrenders immediately. Which is why he has so much more trouble internationally, since other nations don’t instantly yield to him and he doesn’t know how to handle that because he’s never experienced anything but submission and deference from everyone he meets.
I was born in Rhodesia, grew up in the new country Zimbabwe, and now live in South Africa.
White people are in no way supreme, even though some of us are terminally misguided. That part of US nationalism - well, that and more - is so incredibly misplaced.
Trump is almost terminally ignorant, but he still manages to stand up by himself (lifts in his shoes notwithstanding) - Hegseth is evil personified, working behind the stupidity and bluster Trump produces, to do really bad things.
In addition to the “what if they do anyways” argument, is the always latent threat of invoking the Insurrection Act. So far it hasn’t been explicitly invoked, and I believed the EO that instructed cabinet officials to report on whether to invoke it returned ah “nah, probably don’t”, but it’s still out there as an option.
Ah yes, those “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” days … but now we have met the bad guy, and we like him so much we voted for him … all three times.
“We won World War II with seven four-star generals. Today we have 44,” Hegseth said at a town hall at the Pentagon in February. “Do all of those directly contribute to warfighting success? Maybe they do — I don’t know — but it’s worth reviewing to make sure they do.”
“I admit I don’t actually know what any of those generals are doing, but I’ll make an arbitrary decision to cut 20% of them anyways, before doing any kind of review.”
This is like their arbitrary rule that, to enact any new regulation, you must also cut two existing regulations. The only way that makes sense is if you believe that all regulations are created equal, and are all equally worthless.
I mean, I could see calling for a review of all these things, with a mind to cut the ones you determine are useless, but you can’t go putting out an arbitrary target number of cuts before you’ve even started that review.
